K&L's 2016 FTB deposit & round the world travel savings diary

Hutchch0920 · 4 March 2016 at 1:39AM

We are a couple, in our mid-late 20s, met about 6 months ago and quickly knew we wanted to plan our future together. So here we are.

When we met, Keffka was in about £3k of debt with about £50 a month spare to live off after bills - so no disposable income to clear it with. At the beginning it looked like a bit of a mountain to climb!

We started off with a big eBay clear out and wiped £700. After a couple of months I moved in and started to pay 'rent' money to him (although we live with Keffka's parents), which knocked off another £900 in 3 months.After Christmas Keffka decided to sell the Audi that he was paying £360/month in finance on. After settling the finance we had £1k left, so we bought a £500 2002 Ford Focus and put the rest against his debt. Then finally in February the last piece of the debt puzzle fell into place. After reading one of our Martin's guides to reclaiming money from packaged bank accounts I figured Keffka could have quite a strong claim. So we submitted it through the Resolver app one weekend in February and within two days the bank had rang to offer to pay the £2k worth of fees back! We were over the moon....his debt was finally cleared after 5 years! :beer:

So now our saving diary can begin in earnest. Between us we've decided we quite like the idea of having a diary to look back on at the end of the year, something to keep tabs on us and to keep us going. We have two big dreams, to go travelling for 6-12 months and to buy a house to bring our (future) family up in. So we're doing our best to save all our 'diamonds' now, while still having a bit of fun.

As of the beginning of March we've got about £9k over various accounts and our aim is to save another £10.5k to the end of the year which is mostly made up on wages and being sensible with our spending. Our stretch target is to make an extra £2k (or £200 month) on top of this and that's where the fun comes in! Our eBay wins are probably coming to a close now, so our main sources will be mystery shopping and odd jobs that Keffka's family give us.

his month we're going skiing with the parents so I bought some ski gear and I'd love to make that back so if we can exceed our target that would be super!

That's all for now.
Lubi x

savingwannabe · 4 March 2016 at 10:15PM

Welcome and good luck. You sound v determined.:j

Hutchch0920 · 5 March 2016 at 12:45AM

Thanks saving wannabe!

We had a day off together so headed out in the car to go roamlering. Unfortunately our second mystery shop app has been down all day (despite them ringing me yesterday to ask me to go and do more tasks!) so the tasks were all quite far apart and we abandoned it when we got stuck in traffic in London.

Our total extra earnings today are £8.10 from my train season ticket for two delayed trains. I can't say £4 really makes up for being late for work by over an hour but what can you do. :rotfl:

savingwannabe · 5 March 2016 at 10:46AM

It is fab though as you are using your time v well. I hope mystery shopping involves some lovely meals? I have never done a mystery shop but one of my friends used to quite regularly and had some good meals for free.

Hutchch0920 · 16 March 2016 at 5:18PM

It's mostly stock and marketing material checks at the moment, few and far between, no meals as yet! Meals would be great though....I do love food.

We went skiing last week with the family and very kindly it was all paid for by Keffka's parents and our spending money was a Christmas present. We had a fantastic time and I now do see why people pay so much to go! The views are simply incredible.

Since being back tasks on Roamler keep disappearing so I've only made £12, another 9 days till payday though so perhaps a few more opportunities will come up.

It's been a bit of a tough week in the Hutchch household with some inter-sibling arguments since arriving back. Keffka's younger sibling is the most selfish person I have ever met and it does wind me up something chronic but for £1k a month in savings I'll put up with it for now! :silenced:

bellyburner · 17 March 2016 at 10:59AM

Wow - it sounds amazing with what you are doing!

How do you become a mystery shopper?

Hutchch0920 · 24 March 2016 at 9:15PM

There's a thread on the earning extra forums about different ways to do mystery shopping so I read through that and signed up to a few to give it a go :-)

Only another £9k to go.

Hutchch0920 · 29 March 2016 at 11:59AM

What a glorious Easter weekend! Keffka was working Friday morning so I chucked the bike in the back of the car and went out mystery shopping in the sunshine around the city. I covered about 12 miles and managed a total of 13 sites. I've got a loose target of £225 extra this month as that would see us into the next thousand mark....a bit of a challenge though.

We spent the rest of the weekend having family dinners and got out for a walk while managing to dodge the rain clouds. The sky over the rolling farmland on Sunday morning was poetically moody.

Last week ended up being pretty stressful, I was in Brussels for work on the day of the attacks. Managed to make it home safely on the Wednesday to walk straight into an argument with Keffka's eldest sister over his Mum giving us meat for dinner. She thinks it's unfair that his Mum occasionally gives us food and that we should buy our own.....Now I don't disagree, but could I have some of my taxes back that are funding you to sit on your a$s all day at home? :rotfl:

Hutchch0920 · 11 April 2016 at 11:42AM

We're getting towards the middle of the month and I've basically spent all of my 'life / entertaining' and 'food' money! All I've got left is private gymnastics money and enough to pay my phone bill haha...two weeks till payday. We do still have loads of meat in the freezer from our Muscle Foods delivery so I shouldn't have to spend too much...It's self imposed poorness anyway...I could take money out of savings but then I won't learn not to spend it all at once will I.

I've downloaded a couple of extra mystery shopping apps but nothing's been coming up that's in my area. We made a whole £4 coming back from our competition yesterday snapping some photos of Goldenberrys...whatever they are!

It looks like Keffka's sister is serious about moving out. We came home and she chirply gave us a tour of all the things she's bought for their future rented flat. They are waiting on her boyfriend to get a job offer in the city so that they can move out. I am hoping her moving out will improve family relations all round!

savingwannabe · 12 April 2016 at 8:17PM

Sorry about your partner's sister. I think everyone has someone like that in their family. I am sure you will manage to work and stay happy despite her. Stay positive you are doing really well.

Hutchch0920 · 24 April 2016 at 2:52AM

Thanks SavingWannabe! They put an offer in on a rather expensive one bed flat this week so fingers crossed they get it. What made me curious was that she claims she doesn't earn very much more than her brother....but who would fork out £725 plus bills on perhaps a £1300 take home salary when they love shopping so much....that is unless she lied about how much her Dad pays her (family business)....not that it's any of my business really!

I had some good news myself since my last post, the board have approved all of our salary increases and I've been bumped up a massive £5k which I am super happy about but it does have innumerate deliverables attached to it. So I am now sat in the middle of the manager bracket at £35k.

This means we should be able to save an extra £1.8k to the end of the year if we're good. That said we've been offered free accommodation in a house in LA for a summer holiday so perhaps we'll spend a little of the money on flights. I had also thought that this would cover 10 weeks of intensive Portuguese lessons as that's something I'd like to do before OH and I have children, so that they are more likely to be bilingual.

On my additional income target I am ending the month at about £196/£225 target. Admittedly I spent about £46 of it on food and our trip to France rather than saving it but I am still happy that I nearly made it! The had a super expensive day on Friday with a private prescription for £25 and then dinner with Keffka's Aunt at £60. It was an enjoyable evening though and she paid last time so it's only fair....just means it's coming out my 'life' budget on payday.

K&L's 2016 FTB deposit & round the world travel savings diary

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free